I'm going to pull your post apart, and hopefully not twist your intentions:
No EU funding to do that now... there was a good amount of EU funding that came in for development of new industrial centres, especially when looking at the redevelopment of former heavy industrial areas.
No access to collaborative EU research projects for universities, suspect it'll be harder to access things like CERN and the ESA.
Less international engagement as the advantage of engaging with an EU university or research body has disappeared.
Investment will come if there is a competitive advantage; the reason that things have moved overseas is that:
1) Labour is cheaper
2) Incentives have been made available through taxes and inducements, especially in the EU and developing countries.
Now, this presents an interesting problem... the EU bogie man that everyone bemoans is actually one of the ways that this playing field could be levelled. The Euro removes the currency fluctuation - there is less advantage in government policy changes in terms of the currency fluctuations - and the main thing that needs to be implemented is the equivalent tax structure across the Euro zone; this has been done in part with the equal application of VAT across the EU states, but the next stage is the same level of taxes at all levels. The final stage is then the equalisation of wages - ie everyone has the same wages. This would remove the competitive advantage of places like the Czech Republic, Poland etc where wages are lower than the Western member countries.
So, from that, for the UK to attract industry back, they need to have something that is appealing... lower tax rates? See my next part... Lower wages? How low would you go to attract industry? 50% less than you are on now? 75% less than you are on now? That would put the UK approaching level with China...
Trade deals are also part of that attraction, and not having a trade deal with the EU other than WTO is not going to be appealing for anyone - that's no better than many other countries, and in some cases worse. Without that the UK will not be competitive in the international space.
There has been no incentive for investment in apprentices, because it has been cheaper to have international migration that allows skilled migration. The pay thing comes back to that competitive advantage; the destruction of trade unions has had some part in that.
If we are having investment in science and technology, the relationship with university becomes quite interesting; the transfer of the learnt knowledge at university, based on the research that is undertaken there is one of the drivers for regional growth; without that knowledge transfer, and a reliance on "dropped in" technology businesses, the economy stagnates and does not grow or develop supporting industries that further develop the economy in the area; this is one of the reasons why South Wales struggled as it had industries dropped in, but no supporting education to build new knowledge based economies.
They need to be paid from somewhere, and local government don't have the budgets to do that. Someone's got to pay for it, and there just isn't the tax income to do it because the economy has become so global - the purchasing of things from the ilk of Amazon and eBay means that the revenue (and associated taxes) flow off shore via tax havens. Stop buying things via those avenues, buy things locally and the money will go round the economy a bit more and make a difference in the local area.
Yep, it seems like it's going to self-level like a bucket of sh!t... just before it tips over you.
no worries.
allow me to reciprocate the gesture.
the UK pays into the EU many more billions than it gets back. the richer members pay in more to prop up the poorer members.
yes, I have seen the "funded by the EU" posters. as you say, normally in poorer ex industrial areas of the UK.
this is propaganda.
scientist in general don't like to be involved in politics. they are interested in science and the good of science. sharing knowledge through peer review. sharing knowledge increases there own knowledge.
we have some pretty good universities in the UK..
on the contrary. investment should come to create a competitive advantage.
this is the fundamental problem with "bottom line business" as I call it. accountants who don't understand the ins and outs of a business. merely looking at figures. sure, a healthy profit needs to be made for obvious reasons. too many profit making british firms have been destroyed by asset strippers and greedy, self serving, short term thinking people.
GKN a recent example.
sure, cheaper labour can be found elsewhere. sack all of your british work force and move production overseas. increase your profit by blah blah %.
wreck a community in the process. put a percentage of the said ex workforce on benefits for the rest of there lives. the rest have to now do a 30 mile commute to there new lower payed job in the next town. they have less free capital to spend and put back into the economy. there are now a greater number of cars on the road increasing congestion and harmful emissions. NHS spending on respiratory diseases increases by 6%. in the mean time the 3 local firms that provided components have gone into liquidation, a percentage of there ex workforce are now on benefits...…
mean while the new cheaper product is being shipped from the other side of the world via bunker fuel. it is made by 13 year olds working 12 hours a day in a country with a very suspect human rights record and a even more suspect environmental policy.
its all good though. the bottom line has increased by 12%...
the apprenticeship. an investment in the youth of the country to not only provide them with a skilled worthwhile job that they have a sense of pride in, on a lot of occasions following in there fathers footsteps, but also to provide industry with the skill set that it requires.
what you say is indeed true. yet more short term thinking and underinvestment. it also creates resentment towards the skilled migration.
regarding local government revenues. I agree to a certain extent, but ridiculous business rates don't help. we chose super markets over local produce and goods from the butcher, greengrocer and ironmonger.
on line retail is here to stay. they should be paying there fair share of revenue. another issue of being dominated by large foreign corporations that the UK government seems afraid of upsetting.
"Yep, it seems like it's going to self-level like a bucket of sh!t... just before it tips over you"
that's your opinion. you are entitled to it.